Tonight, I used 10.3's built-in fax receipt services for the first time -- I was expecting a seven page fax, so I set the machine to answer and waited for the call1. I heard the phone ring and the modem connect, so I was pretty sure it was working right. I have the print/fax preferences set to save faxes to the Shared Faxes folder, but after 10 minutes or so, there was still nothing to be seen there.

I saw an error in the Console program about "fax notify" failing, so that sent me to the Terminal to do some digging. I cded to /var -> spool -> fax, where I found a series of files named something like:

0212220312.001
0212220312.002
0211220312.003
etc

Each of these had varying lengths, so I guessed that each was a page from my missing fax. I then used:

to copy each fax file to the desktop and make it a TIFF file (the default fax image format). The final step was to open the Get Info window on each file, and change the Permissions so that I was the owner with read/write privileges (the files were owned by root with limited permissions). Once I'd done that, I selected all seven pages and opened them in Preview, and found my missing fax.

As a side note, a restart seemed to clear up whatever the issue was -- after I rebooted, I found that the seven page fax had also shown up in the Shared Faxes folder. So I'm not sure if this was a one-time anomaly, or if I've got a deeper issue that will require further troubleshooting.

You're not the only one. It's definitely a minor bug. After receiving my first fax, I couldn't find it anywhere, and assumed it needed to be resent. Resent the fax, and still didn't see it. A restart revealed the Shared Faxes folder.